Choreographien der Arbeit (UA)

by Sascha Hargesheimer

Sascha Hargesheimer takes us back to the 80s: straight into the triumph of neoliberalism, the time when television became a mass medium and manipulation device, the era of conspiracy theories and UFO-sightings, the time of Ronald Reagan’s government. Parallels can be drawn between the socio-political status of those days, which enabled Reagan’s election victory, and our current situation. But Sascha Hargesheimer’s new play doesn’t focus on world politics: He tells the story of a marginal character, one whose life mysteriously has a lot to say about its time and about ourselves. The author sets out to look for traces and makes a re-discovery which is astonishing in the face of global simultaneity and total digital availability. But how to tell a story? How to find truth in a tale? Sascha Hargesheimer developed the topic of his new play, a commissioned work for Schauspiel Leipzig, in close co-operation with associate director Claudia Bauer.

Sascha Hargesheimer studied Creative Writing for the Stage at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2008 and has been working as a freelance director and author. He received the Munich Prize for New German Drama in 2013 and the Osnabrück Dramatists’ Award in 2014. In April 2015, Hargesheimer’s first libretto, “Ohio”, was premiered at Deutsche Oper Berlin. This was followed by a presentation of “Archiv der Erschöpfung” at Autorentheatertage at Deutsches Theater Berlin. In May 2016, the play “Die europäische Wildnis – eine Odyssee”, developed as part of Schauspiel Frankfurt’s Autorenstudio, was premiered by Schauspiel Frankfurt and Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen.

Claudia Bauer has been associate director at Schauspiel Leipzig since the 2015/16 season and also works for Schauspiel Dortmund, Schauspiel Hannover, Schauspielhaus Graz, Theater Basel and others. Some examples of her much-noticed productions of contemporary plays in Leipzig are the world premieres of Wolfram Höll’s “Und dann” (invited to the Mülheimer Theatertage – Stücke 2014, the Autorentheatertage at Deutsches Theater Berlin and to the Heidelberger Stückemarkt) and of Bernhard Studlar’s “Die Ermüdeten” as well as the German premiere of Katja Brunner’s “geister sind auch nur menschen”. Her production of “89/90”, based on Peter Richter’ novel, was invited to the 2017 Berlin Theatertreffen.